


everything i love is on the table (everything i love is out to sea)

by shortitude



Series: i have only two emotions: careful fear and dead devotion [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (also what are my tags even aside from incoherent??), (hello -'ello-'llo-o? echo echo echo), (is anyone reading these?), (stop me.), F/M, Friends to Lovers, Off-screen Relationship(s), bellamy's in love with raven pass it on, but he tries, no amount of bellamy's dick will help, oh boy does he try??, raven's a soft and tender little fool pass it on, season 1 and 2 are sad for raven reyes, this fic is sadder than the actual tags i'm not gonna lie, this ship has angst down to an artform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 20:40:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8116828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortitude/pseuds/shortitude
Summary: It's not a competition, exactly. He'd lose it, because Raven has grown up used to the feel and taste and smell of Finn's skin, and Bellamy was so different that it all felt wrong, wrong, wrong. The first time is impulsive and moved by anger, by hurt, by a sufficient amount of bitterness; it's insufficient and wrong, it's unsatisfying and she keeps comparing him to Finn and finding him lacking. Her mind hasn't caught up yet, see? She has been betrayed, but some part of her sees it in abstract; surely it doesn't matter that right now there is someone else out there that Finn has eagerly let get used to the feel and taste and smell of him, because her treacherous brain insists on loyalty. Or maybe it's her faulty heart, the murmur of it causing her to be slow on the uptake?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lostemotion (geckoholic)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



> **Prompt 3:** Raven/Bellamy, S1 hidden relationship; they keep sleeping with each other on the sly and slowly fall in love; your call if it’s angsty and issue-laden while they figure out what they want form each other or if it’s fun shenanigans as other people get a clue
> 
>  **author's note:** SECRET RELATIONSHIP IS MY JAMMMM but also i get the feeling that these guys wouldn't have a hidden or secret one as much as they'd just be very discreet about it? maybe? ANYWAY, i played around a bit with time (how much time transpired between one even and other, swapped some scenes' order - mostly i've forgotten everything from s1 except the slow-motion replay of the scene in The Calm) in s1 to make it feel more solid, then events of s2 sort of deviated a bit and i stopped there because i still stay away from s3 sorry. :( i hope you like it!!!

"Did that help?"

"No."

\--

It's not a competition, exactly. He'd lose it, because Raven has grown up used to the feel and taste and smell of Finn's skin, and Bellamy was so different that it all felt wrong, wrong, wrong. The first time is impulsive and moved by anger, by hurt, by a sufficient amount of bitterness; it's insufficient and wrong, it's unsatisfying and she keeps comparing him to Finn and finding him lacking. 

Her mind hasn't caught up yet, see? She has been betrayed, but some part of her sees it in abstract; surely it doesn't matter that right now there is someone else out there that Finn has eagerly let get used to the feel and taste and smell of him, because her treacherous brain insists on loyalty. Or maybe it's her faulty heart, the murmur of it causing her to be slow on the uptake?

Either way, the fact that Bellamy doesn't help, it's not his fault; it's not a competition. She's the one who thought sex would somehow make her feel better, because it had worked in the past. The adrenaline, the aftermath, the soft touches that followed a hard orgasm, reminding her that she was was strong and real... There had been a risk, in the middle of the night, of Bellamy pulling that need from her, of his hands running down her back eliciting a real sigh, and that was when she'd discovered a truth: she hadn't wanted it to make her feel better, she'd wanted something to make her feel worse.

Maybe she should've told Bellamy that he had helped. 

But then what followed wouldn't have happened.

\--

When they all have a moment to catch their breath, Bellamy manifests himself into Raven's tent. She's busy making the radios she stayed back for, and only half thinking about him in terms of the person who somehow managed to make her not run from her problems while calling her smart. (And a pain in his ass.) 

Since they've been so good at acting like that night didn't happen, she expects he's her on business because it'd be easier than anything else. He's not.

"I wanted to check if you're okay," he says, murmurs it like it's a dirty secret, because perhaps it is. After all, he's showing weakness. 

Her eyebrows go up. "Thought you weren't the guy if I needed someone to care." Another one, and he's full of bullshit too. He shrugs, like it doesn't matter to him that he's been caught in the lie, and Raven's shoulders loose some of their tension. "I'm handling it." A bit harder than he deserves, she adds, "You don't have to worry about me showing up in your tent again."

"That part wasn't so bad," he tries to joke.

"What, not a pain in your ass?" she tries to joke, too.

(So they're talking about it, she guesses. It's not as awkward as she expected it to be.)

"No, you're still definitely that," he says, and this time he doesn't only try to tease; that half-smirk of his manages it. (In an objective way, he is quite fucking pretty. So her messed up state didn't exactly choose a troll, go her.) "But maybe you need it again, for it to work."

It takes a moment for the light bulb to go off in her genius head, and the eyebrows raise again, close to her hairline, as her hands pause what they're doing with the radios. "Are you offering to fuck me into feeling better?" 

"Does it sound like I am?"

" _Yes._ "

He flashes her a grin, and shrugs. "Well." 

Well, shit - _well_ , indeed. She unexpectedly starts to laugh. He doesn't seem to mind much, given how the grin comes back for a few seconds longer this time, and just like that the bitter guilt from the previous night has dissipated a bit. 

"I wasn't that bad, was I?" he asks, when she continues laughing, spurring some giggles to mark the end of the joke. A good joke, except that he means it. He's looking at her like he means it, like he'd do her if she wanted him to. 

She licks her lips. "I'll think about it." 

\--

The second time is a disaster for completely different reasons. 

She feels none of the anger that pushed her into his tent and bed the last time, it's a conscious decision to go for it this time, and it's moved by an unexpected wave of arousal that happens in the most uncanny moment. He defends her bringing guns to Finn, and makes him feel like the fool, instead of Raven who only wants to help her people out here, so what if she was never violent before? The fact is the her only family believes that she has changed into some monster in the span of a few days, it's like he's never seen Raven fighting for her right to live before. 

When she looks up at Bellamy's defense right there, in the middle of the crowd made of her, him, and the two people who made sure to break her heart, she feels something other than rage, and the heat is unexpected. 

However, wanting to isn't the same as being very good at it, so when she shows up in Bellamy's tent and tells him "I thought about it," and takes off her shirt, what follows isn't fantastic sex. It's rushed, no longer moved by the anger from the first night that kept the blood boiling in her veins, so to Raven it doesn't feel quite great. There are two selling moments to it all: when he kisses down her neck, and when he grabs hold of one arm and pins it up over her head while he's inside her. But their rhythm is off, and Bellamy above her is just not the same as him under her; he has fun, at least, which she's glad for because he sort of deserves that for being pretty damn okay, as far as a human being goes. 

"Next time," he pants against the back of her neck, during the three minutes he manages to keep her in his arms for a cuddle. "I'll figure you out." 

Such dedication, for someone who is a pain in his ass, she doesn't know what to do with it. So she kisses his cheek and mutters something about having to make the radios, and gets out of there. 

\--

There is no lucky third time. (Not for a while.)

\--

Bloodloss feels a lot like a fire, Raven thinks. Or maybe it's the thought of a ring of fire that has her thinking on a tangent. She has been propped up against a metal wall, and is trying to not pass out while instructing Clarke in how to rig the dropship to ignite; in her hand rests a radio that she was clutching hard, with white knuckles, while listening to Bellamy's big, effective war cry. He'd be a good politician, she thinks, a little lost to reality in the midst of pain. 

She doesn't get to see him while she tells Clarke how to save their people from Grounders. All that she can hope for is that he makes it, that he lives -- she hopes Finn makes it too, and Octavia, and Clarke, because Raven's heart is big and fits a lot of people, see. She is left with a bullet in her spine, a radio in her hand, and the remnants of his speech in her head, and if that's what helps her cling onto life and her drop ship when she's the only one left on it, well. Like he said.

She was there first. 

\--

She almost passes out when Abby says she doesn't have anything to offer as far as anesthesia and painkillers go. It would be so much easier, to pass out and let the good doctor do her job, except she would be woken up by pain anyway. 

Instead, she asks who else made it, and tries to think about who can hold her down, because if Abby thinks she won't fight and struggle through it, with the last sliver of her power, she's wrong. When she hears one name, she sighs with relief; for the other, she worries -- got into a punching match with Murphy and ended up being arrested, Abby says -- but the good side of all this is that something in her expression gets the Chancellor to bring both boys into the surgery tent. 

"You better not fucking blame yourself for this one," she snaps at Bellamy, when she sees him --face covered in mud and blood and gaze haunted when he sees the blood on her shirt, the one that's already cut up the middle of her back to her shoulder blades. 

"I do," mutters Finn, sitting down at her right and glaring at Bellamy over her head. She snaps her fingers in front of his face weakly, and narrows her eyes at him.

"Don't. I'm too scared right now to fight either of you, or watch you fight, so just hold it in." Then, as Abby pulls over the table with her surgical tools, she adds, "Hold me down." 

They do. 

She cries and yells, until she's too hoarse to manage it anymore, and passes out. If anyone asks her whether surgery feels like a fire too, she won't know what to say.  
Fire, to her, used to be a warmer and more welcome thing. This, this feels like the flames hells are made of. 

\--

She can't stand them watching her like she'll always be this weak and pitiable anymore, so she ushers them both to go and find their people, because -- what the fuck -- fifty people don't just vanish out of thin air, someone must've taken them. 

Bellamy's the one who lingers, because she suspects that Finn is thinking about Clarke now, now that he's allowed to - now, that he no longer needs to hold his childhood friend through her worst moment and can think - but Bellamy's lingering still surprises her. Even more so, the silence that follows, the way he tucks her hair behind her ear and keeps his dirty hand on her cheek. (What, like she'll get an infection? She's not that unlucky twice.) 

"I know you're dying for a reason to make this about you," she croaks out, and though the joke falls flat, she still manages to laugh at herself towards the last words, prompting him to join her. 

He leans in, and kisses the side of her forehead. "Thank you." He leaves it at that. (Whatever self-reprimanding he does will be on the inside, she knows.)

"Try not to die, okay?" she asks, after reaching up to cup his hand over her cheek. She pulls it down, squeezes his fingers as weakly as she can muster, and lets it go. 

Let's him go. 

\--

Sinclair builds her a brace. 

"It's not the best one," he says, "You could probably do a better job of it yourself, but I thought we haven't exactly given you time to take care of yourself first." 

She almost wants to start crying, but bites her lower lip and makes a comment about the brace being a overly-complicated mess. 

"Give it a chance."

She does. It's the second time she's given a second chance, because of him. She makes sure to improve his design over night, so she can stop being sorry for herself the next morning, and start helping out. 

\--

When the Blakes come back into the newly-minted Camp Jaha, it's Clarke who gets to run at them, while Raven sort of wobbles over at a slower pace. It would be a very brave, very solid thing to convince herself that she doesn't feel a lick of envy, when she watches Clarke jump to hug Bellamy, but it would also be a lie. There is an honest moment, in which she allows herself to feel the possessive kind of jealousy, to think _oh, not him, too_ ; she avoids making eye contact with any of them in that point, which is why she doesn't go for a hug as well. She'd linger. She'd be exposed again. 

And Finn is missing. 

\--

She has managed to graciously convince Kyle Wick to donate some guns to their cause, and is packing them into a duffel bag while watching her back, trying hard not to worry and trying harder not to want. 

Bellamy manifests himself behind her quietly, and sets his hand on her shoulder; he's warm, in ways that she has missed warmth. 

"Nice brace," he murmurs, before she turns around to face him. 

"Thanks." _Hug me,_ she thinks. "Are you here to chitchat or help me commit treason against the Chancellor?" 

(She is angry, that it's come down to this. She has broken the law countless times for Abigail, but when it comes to helping _Raven_ rescue her family, it's just cricket sounds and my hands are tied.) 

He spots the guns in the bag and raises his eyebrows. "That's gonna get you in jail."

"What'll they do, float me?" she jokes, poorly again. Averting her gaze, she murmurs, "He's my family, Bellamy. The only one I got left. I need to get him back - I need to contribute to that, somehow. Any way that I can." 

He hugs her. Just like that. She guesses that maybe he's not entirely new at this, Octavia probably grew up getting hugged like crazy, but oh, it feels so good. They're alone, so she lingers. It's a better touch to get than the pitying caresses he gave her before leaving her after surgery. She lingers, and breathes him in, and lets herself be a little scared about the world right now, because somehow hugging him acts as an anchor and she can get back on her feet again. (Imagine that.) 

"We'll get him back," he says. (Not 'them'; they both seem to have the same opinion about Murphy right now.) "But he's not the only one you've got."

She has seen how tightly he clings to his sister, how deeply and strongly he feels about his family; many times, she has drawn comparisons and come to the conclusion that they are very similar, in that aspect, in the way they love their loved ones. To be suddenly so openly included in that group by him leaves her feeling raw; now is not the time to linger. She's not sure she will get to want, and have, like that anymore. Not any time soon. 

But she knows he's not lying. He cares. "Jinxed yourself there, huh?" she murmurs, amused.

"I'm just lucky that way," he answers, not missing a beat. 

She draws back, and looks up at his face, at the open honesty there, at the freckles on his nose and cheeks, and the warmth in his eyes. "I know he's not the only one," she whispers, "but I still need him back."

The tension coils tight, then evaporates. He exhales, and nods, leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead. "We will. Come on."

She leads him out back to the spot where the fence is switched off, and watches him go with the sinking feeling that she missed a chance. 

But this is not the time to linger. 

It isn't the time to want.

\--

Finn Collins has been so good at keeping her alive that it feels surprising that he turns out to be so good at breaking her heart. Once, when he forgets her in ten days; again, when he lies to her. When he belittles her for making bullets and guns and radios, and hesitates before catching her; then, when he does what he does in the Grounder village, and stops being the little boy who saved lives. 

She doesn't know how to handle him, or how to look at him, but she knows that she will try to keep him safe. She has to. 

\--

There is one respite. 

The night when they get Finn back and join everyone in the Camp, Raven finds her way into Bellamy's tent again. The light from the camp fire is illuminating them again, less violent-red and more reunion-orange. She thinks they move in unison and meet in the middle. She thinks that when they kiss, they both sigh into each other's mouth at the same time. 

She might murmur a _thank you_ against his lips at one point, at the beginning, but that's not why she's doing this. Soon, thank you becomes "Take off your clothes." 

Then, it becomes a soft, "Kiss me there again." 

He's a very good listener, and a quick learner, and looks down at her as he pushes his clean hand inside her pants and touches her. "Tell me where." 

They work together; it's not a lucky third time, because she is no longer the same girl she was then, but as far as beginning anew goes, this one works. 

She comes with his teeth around the skin of her shoulder and her hand wrapped around his wrist between her legs, nails digging into the skin just slightly. He licks his fingers clean, and then kisses her again, and she grins afterwards. It feels like an eternity since she's done that. 

"We should do that again some time," she tells him, and reaches for the belt of his pants.

\--

The last time Finn Collins breaks her heart: he dies.

\--

There are warm, big hands holding her up and trying to hold her together. Warm, big hands quietly telling her that everything will be alright, that he has her, she can cry; warm hands that lie, because nothing will be alright now. She is held by warm hands, and doubts she will ever feel anything other than cold again. 

\--

The Grounders burn Finn's body with the corpses of the people he slaughtered, and Raven tries not to give them the satisfaction of watching her cry, but oh, she wants to. She hurts everywhere, with her fresh new stitches and her shirt lost and replaced by one that smells vaguely of Bellamy Blake; maybe any other time, she would care about this part, but right now she doesn't. 

They are burning the unbreathing body of the boy who changed her life, more than once, and with each flicker of the fire, Raven feels herself float away to a place where there will be no grief, hopefully, for a second. All she needs is one second, that's it, she promises; one second in which she is whole, and Finn is alive, and nothing hurts. 

The second never comes.

Instead, what does follow is that she feels a different sort of warmth, dimly, standing right next to her as solid as the first day she met him and said _I'm right here_. As she watches the forms in the fire crumble to ash, she reaches out and holds onto his hand, and doesn't let go until the fire dies out. He doesn't move.

\--

She is angry again. 

She should be grieving, not struggling with forgiving Clarke so they can move on, but she is angry. The alliance with the Grounders won't last, because it's built on blood not trust, but it's the best bet they have to bring their people out of the mountain and make all of this, somehow, worth it. (It won't be.) It's easy to be angry, easier than grief. 

She barges into Bellamy's tent as he gets ready to leave at dawn, and snaps: "It's not worth the risk."

He looks up at her so suddenly that it's as if she's drenched him in a bucket of cold water. Imagine that, he seems actually shocked that someone might care whether he dies in the mountain or not. Jesus, of course she cares. 

"It's the best bet we have," he murmurs, and his gaze breaks her heart a bit, because he's looking at her like expects Raven to come up with a genius plan, but her genius head is empty of ideas and full of panic and hurt and anger.

"I know," she bites, and steps closer. Gets her hands clasped on the sides of his open jacket. "But it's not worth the risk. You're not worth the risk." She kisses him so hard her teeth hurt. "So come back," she manages to murmur, before he closes the gap between their lips and kisses her breath away in return. 

They punish each other with hope that night. They chastise each other with improbable demands: come back safe, stay safe, don't be reckless. They hurt each other with soft, tender kisses, and his hand on the small of her back under her as he pushes in and out of her, and her hands in his hair and down his back leaving him marked. They leave each other raw, and shaky, and as small as they feel big. They break each other on gazes held as they come, and build each other back up in the aftermath, with kisses pressed to cheeks and foreheads and lips alike. 

"Be smart," she asks him, in the morning, when she joins the party that says goodbye to him and Lincoln. The others don't know a thing; she didn't spend the night in his tent, but she carries his hickeys with her for the following days, and touches them to feel anchored, when he fails to get to a radio. 

\--

"You know I like a good explosion," she tries to joke, the first poor attempt at one since she broke the news of Tondc to him and felt the temperature between them drop. He somehow still manages to trust her, which she tells herself is enough. 

"I'd rather not blow myself up for one," he jokes back, and Raven grins under Wick's bemused gaze. 

She isn't exactly subtle, probably. When they listen to the explosion, she holds her breath and grabs the radio with white-knuckled hands. When Bellamy's voice comes through and announces that he's made it, and it worked, she starts laughing and crying. 

"Go tell Abby," she tells Wick, and presses the radio to her lips, bacteria and all, choking on a small sob. 

"Raven?"

"Still here," she croaks out. "Stay safe. We're coming to get you all out." 

\--

If it turns out that her life is going to be a sandwich made of equal parts pain and hope, she's gonna be so mad, yet here she is. 

Everything hurts again. 

Mount Weather falls. Their people, set free, leave in a slow and quiet procession, propping each other up, helping each other move forward and away from what they've done. 

Bellamy's the one who comes to get her. Kyle is carrying her out of the room where those assholes went for her only healthy leg left, and she hates it; not because Kyle is carrying her, but because she has to be carried. Bellamy shows up, and only says two words to him: "Let me." 

"Let him," she murmurs, after three seconds of silence and a staredown that has no place between the two men. She is passed to Bellamy as gingerly as possible. "You made it," she tells him, resting her head against his shoulder and closing her eyes. 

He squeezes her. (Later, she'll know that means 'more or less'.) 

\--

When she wakes up again, they're back at Camp Jaha, and watching Clarke walk away. Well, Bellamy is, she's pretty sure they meant for her to sleep through that as well. 

There are things that happened in Mount Weather that she doesn't know about yet, so she asks him: "You feel like running, too?"

He startles, and looks down at her, his hard features melting into something softer, kinder. "I have more reasons to stay."

The likely thing here is that he means he has to repent, wash his hands clean of sins, to keep his people safe, to keep his sister safe and alive, to make up for everything he's somehow caused. But Raven hears what she wants to hear. 

They stay there a while longer, until Clarke disappears into the forest and the sun sinks behind the trees. Him, watching the horizon, and Raven watching him. 

It took Finn ten days to fall in love with someone else, in spite of the fact that they'd promised each other the sun and the stars and the world, and she never got how; how could it have taken him so little. Now, right now, she thinks she's finally beginning to understand.

**Author's Note:**

> HOKAY SO AFTER THAT ANGST FEST i decided i'd write a sequel that would be all tender porn, so **gecko** , you get two prompts, congrats.


End file.
